Untold Joy

'Your suffering will never end, Joy, I can see it. The way things are panning out,' the doomsday prophet Roy, a friend of Joy prophecied. But Joy desired to prove him wrong. Will he or will he not, only time will tell. Joy was a laborious, hard working man, although may not be too meritorious but that may be a relative term and questionable. Joy knew that he could not depend on his merit but must work his way through if he had to reach anywhere in life. He was aspirational but had doubts on his abilities and how the world would reward his merit whatever of it he possessed. 
At the fag end of his learning career, Joy decided he would give back to the society from which he had derived so much. The best way he could do that is by teaching, the only thing he could do best. He knew he could do justice to himself if he applied for a teaching job at a government school. Though private schools are good pay masters he knew but that needed connections with rich and powerful people which he had none and also which he shunned. 
He found the selection process for the school teacher had already been polluted and reached a level where it had become totally murky. An open cash for selection scheme was doing the round rather brazenly in front of the authorities and everyone was keeping quiet as if it was normal. Joy knew he had a long wait if at all he wanted to be selected. He waited for more than five years and still he did not get a call up. After a further couple of years wait when there was no positive developments, many job aspirants, Joy among them filed a suit against the education system citing delaying tactics without valid reasons. The court case prolonged the recruitment process further. There were many hearing and adjournment but no result. The job seekers took to the streets protesting and had to court arrest. Joy spent few days in the jail with numerous others. Finally the court gave them reprieve and let them out free as the government couldn't take the liability of feeding them indefinitely at the cost of the exchequer. 
A few more years passed and no result. Since the time Joy had applied a decade passed. Nearing middle age, Joy analysed that much of his working life was now gone by. 
Nothing worthy to do but Joy did not lose his enterprising spirit. He decided to do something radical, something out of the box. Joy had heard one political neta saying on a street side meet that the government had limitations providing good paying jobs to so many aspirants. So it would be best if they started off their own venture by selling pakoras. He took this cue and decided to sell fried snacks item like samosa, pakoras, chops, cutlet, namkin etc. all salted items out of the Indian kitchen. The main staple diet of the Indian subaltern. Though now these items have trickled into bourgeois drawing rooms tea gathering. Although Joy was challenged doing cooking stuff, he decided to employ a good cook he knew from many years. 
Fortunately for him in this new avatar as a self trained cook of sorts, Joy didn't have to look back again. But the think he liked best, teaching, was put in the back burner. He didn't have many students so they didn't suffer much. 
In this new world of cookery, Joy became an unlikely star. The cook he had hired changed his fortune just with couple of months. They both started off with morning and evening snacks. The area they served proved to be a boon for them with numerous offices and their swarming staff. Then they branched off to providing full lunch and sometimes dinner services if the demand came. 
A decade had gone to waste fighting to get a job for the work he liked best, teaching. But fate had something else in store. A profession in which he seemed like a fish out of water now became his main stay. 
Just within a time span of five years he achieved so much that from a small time road side eatery he now boasts of a full state of the art restaurant that has earned five star ratings for continuous two years in the running. He now recruits chefs pass out from hospitality schools. Untold joy for the unlikely Joy. But as his first love remains teaching, Joy teaches a set of Street urchins free of cost in the evening on the street outside his restaurant. Because Joy likes to give back to the society something of which he can offer.